Overlooked Reasons Why Muhammad Ali Beat George Foreman

I don't think their's any credible evidence for him being born in '32. I don't think their's ANY evidence other than his say-so as a matter of fact, while their are reasonable sources saying he was born '28 or '27. So I stand by my assertion, he was 34 at the minimum when he fought Ali which is factually correct.

 

Well, he did look like he notably “aged” over the course of the Miami fight - particularly in still photos, but that was due to a combo of fatigue and facial damage.

Otherwise, Liston could look older in some vision but not so much other times - and unfortunately an older appearance isn’t definitive evidence but it certainly can be taken into consideration. So too can body deteriorations (possible tell tale loss of more youthful trim and hardness) which can accelerate after a certain age even if the fighter is in their best possible shape as at any given time post prime.

The most annoying thing were/are
the so called experts, of which there were many, who said Liston was much older than he claimed - but they provide no hard evidence or much clue at all as to why they believed same - that includes Jerry Izenberg -

But the suspicions re his age preceded the Ali fight and we all know that prior to their first fight Ali said to Liston “You’re 40 years if you’re a day…..”. There was def. a lot of smoke going around as to Liston being much older than his registered 1932 YOB -

I know all the info to date as it relates to multiple possibilities re Liston’s YOB, including census’, police records, family claims etc. - and that info can be crunched different ways to argue for different YOBs and, IMO, there is no strong reason to necessarily preclude the possibility of a YOB of 1928 but I don’t think I would put him any further back than that.

Let’s see what the 1950 census has to say OR not to say, LOL.

 

It seems 1932 is not very likely.
But your years may be-or 1930. If not found in that census, he may not have quite been born yet-recall a writer listed 7/22/30 as credible, & the 1940 census saying he was 10 years old seems like good evidence.

If this is correct, & if you check exactly when they fought, he could easily have been 33 & 34 when the fights with Clay/Ali took place.

How old he looked is a silly way to determine his age. Given hard living, drinking, scars...And many people look a bunch of years older-or younger-than they are.

 

I don't think it's silly at all .. look at the guy .. to me it's the most obvious .. I'm not talking severe leaps of faith but common sense .. if he was 32 when they first fought he was the oldest looking 32 I've ever seen ..

 

Because he was not H2H, Lol, Ha, Ha. Because George did not fight German Shepard, Lol.

 

4. Foreman suffer a bad cut in camp. This made him stay longer in Africa to heal it and lose focus. People forget.

 

The George Foreman vs Muhammad Ali title bout was originally scheduled for Sept 30 1974, but you are correct, Foreman suffered a cut in sparring, the fight had to be moved up to Oct 30 1974.

 

It IS a severe leap of faith to ignore evidence that Liston was born from the late 1920's-early 1930's-where ALL credible evidence lands-or not present evidence that can show he was around or over 40 when he fought Clay/Ali.

It is also a severe leap of faith to say just look at the guy, he could not have been only around his mid 30's then, he must be at least 40.
Your moniker involves being a Historian & Filmmaker-how could you ever accept evidence of a certain age just base upon appearance?

Or even that he must older than where all the evidence suggests.
I guess if there were photos where he looked literally elderly, then in the absence of indications he had a disease that aged him prematurely you can say it was unlikely he was mid 30's-but then it would also be unlikely he was early middle age!

We can find endless examples of people looking a decade or more older or younger than their age.
If Liston "looked" 40 when fighting Clay, he was at most 6 years & change older "looking" than he the younest credible age we have for him, born in 1930.

It seems he was a little older than 32 when they first fought, since I afree with Swag;s argument that 1932 is not plausible.
If born in 1930, he likely had not turned 34 yet.
Anyway given his hard living, drinking, scar tissue-& still formidable build-around that age or even not too far in his 40's are reasonable: only for how he APPEARED.

But just looking at him nobody can know how old he is.

 

I agree on Ali's holding in the rematch with Frazier, he got away with murder that fight.

 

GREAT analysis--the venue atmosphere and mental aspect in particular!! Ali was idolized in Africa--Foreman never felt comfortable there from the minute he landed on the continent. Ali got in Foreman's head and bamboozled the hell out of him--totally threw him off--IMHO those were the most critical factors that led to George's stunning defeat.